The 2008 Presidential Election has come and gone. While I’m sure there are some of you out there who aren’t happy with the outcome, now that it’s over, I think we can all agree that it’ll be nice to see the endless debate and discourse settle down so we can get back to liking each other. That’s why I figure, hey, why don’t I write a political humor article to get people all ticked off again?

It goes without saying that your world view tends to be reflected in your choice of candidate, but the effects that your personal philosophies have on your homebrewing habits may be more subtle. Let’s take a look at the sorts of homebrewers that supporters of the different candidates may be:

Barack Obama Supporters (Democratic Party)

After carefully examining the failed beers brewed previously, you throw out all of your recipes, pledging to bring new brewing ideas to the table without really specifying anything. Nevertheless, your beers have won you a lot of devoted followers, though they do sometimes come off as a little bit fanatical.

John McCain Supporters (Republican Party)

You focus on all of the big, high ABV beers, the theory being that what you bestow on them will trickle down to the weaker brews (which, coincidentally, your wealthy in-laws make quite a lot of money on). You frequently attack beers brewed by Obama supporters. Also, you were a POW in Vietnam.

Chuck Baldwin Supporters (Constitution Party)

You firmly support the Reinheitsgebot, and try to base your recipes on the fundamental laws it sets down. You support any homebrewer who wishes to secede from the AHA.

Bob Barr Supporters (Libertarian Party)

You tend to focus on your own brewing, and prefer not to intervene in other brewer’s lives, to the point where you refuse to give your homebrewer friends any assistance when they ask for it. In fact, you believe they would use your help against you in the end. You oppose any federal definition of brewing.

Cynthia McKinney Supporters (Green Party)

You do your best to minimize waste when you brew. You use only organically grown malts and hops, and you compost everything when you’re done. You embrace all kinds of beers, and wish for everyone you know to participate in the creation of your recipes. No one seems to notice that you’re Black, too.

Ralph Nader Supporters (Independent)

Though people generally do not object to your beers, not many are particularly interested in drinking them, either, no matter how often you try to brew. Recently, you’ve made a few off-color beers that you later had to apologize for.

Ron Paul Supporters (write-in)

You believe that your beers should be what they want to be, so long as they don’t impinge on any other beer’s right to do the same, and so you tend to exert minimal control when writing your recipes. You provide a few ingredients and try to give your beer guidance, but ultimately, you believe that whatever the beer ends up being will be ultimately good. That said, you absolutely, positively refuse to support another brewer’s decision to abort a beer currently fermenting.

Disclaimer: This is just a stupid blog post so seriously don’t get all bent out of shape all right?

Homebrewing, Opinion 2 Comments »

Remarkably, we are not brewing a pumpkin beer this year.

The weather is getting cold (not to mention characteristically unpredictable) over here in South Jersey, and it won’t be long before we’re all huddled under blankets in front of our open ovens. It’s time to brew something warm!

This month, we’ve put together an apple beer loaded with spices and sweetness. We don’t expect it to be especially alcoholic, but the 6.5% ABV that we’re shooting for should still be pleasantly warming. Factor in the 40% cider wort, mix in a little luck, and we should end up with something like a nice, hot apple pie to get us through Jersey’s bitter January. Except it’s beer and it’s cold.

One unique thing about this recipe is that it doesn’t really fit into a specific style. We based the recipe loosely on the Red Ale style, but there are also elements of Scotch Ale. That and it’s obviously also a fruit beer, which is what it’d be entered under in a competition. Basically, this beer is a monstrosity and a perversion of nature. And here’s how to make it:

30 October 2008
Winter Red Apple Ale
5 gallons, 30 minute steep, 60 minute boil

5.0 lbs Ultralight Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)

Specialty Grains:
1.0 lbs Crystal Malt 120L
1.0 lbs CaraRed Malt
0.5 lbs CaraFoam Malt
0.25 lbs Chocolate Malt

1 lb 8 oz Wildflower Honey (15 min)

2.0 oz Willamette Hops [3.9% AA] (60 min)

2 gal Apple Cider
3.0 lbs Granny Smith Apples, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2.0 lbs Gala Apples, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 Whole Cinnamon Sticks
1 Whole Nutmeg, chopped
1 oz Ginger Root, peeled and chopped
1 oz Coriander Seed, crushed

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs Irish Ale Yeast WLP004

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

———

Create a yeast starter two days in advance.

Add cider and 1 gallon of water to kettle. Heat to 155°F.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat, add malt extract while stirring.

Bring to a boil. Add hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add honey while stirring. Add apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger root, and coriander.

Return to boil for remaining 15 minutes.

Chill wort to below 80°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast starter and aerate thoroughly. Allow to ferment to completion at 65 - 70°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for 1 - 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for two weeks.

One important note: Do not use apple cider that has preservatives in it. The preservatives will either kill or severely inhibit the yeast. You’ll most likely have to go to either Wholefoods or a farmer’s market to get un-preserved cider. Get an extra gallon while you’re there, to prepare for the eventuality of you drinking a lot of it before you can get to brewing.

For the apples, we were shooting for a slightly tart apple character, so we used more Granny Smiths than Galas. Taste your cider beforehand and adjust your apple selections to your liking. You may want to use many different apples to give the beer lots of apple complexity. My style, personally, is to focus on one or two flavors and really showcase them (which is also why I tend to write recipes with only one breed of hop). Some people like to mix it up. Do what makes you happy. Pet a kitty. Give hugs.

Honeywise, your best bet is to take a ride to your local farmer’s market. The honey you can get at the supermarket is perfectly valid, but you’ll probably find that you get higher quality stuff from local farmers. Ours came from the agricultural prodigies at Griggstown Quail Farm.

A couple more tips: Instead of trying to chop the nutmeg, wrap it in paper towel and hit it with a mallet. Try to resist the urge to stuff your nose in the freshly smashed nutmeg. You won’t be able to. It’s intoxicating, I tell you. For the coriander, pulse it in a coffee grinder for a few seconds.

Something we’re trying differently this time: All of our beers so far have come out with a lot of fruity esters. It’s yummy in most cases, but in the stout, for example, it was completely out of place. These esters are the result of the temperature in our bathroom where we keep our fermenters; warmer fermentations produce more esters. To try to contain this, at my brother-in-law Tim’s, recommendation, we filled the bathtub up with a few inches of water, set the fermenter in the water, and covered it with a wet towel. Tim says this should lower our fermentation temperature by a good 10 degrees. He’s smart.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes 2 Comments »

One of the best parts of being a social species is that we get to have tons upon tons of stifling social rules imposed on us that we absolutely must adhere to on pain of ostracization. But don’t feel left out, homebrewing community! Even you can enjoy this ambrosial luxury!

My fellow prisoners, let us look at the rules of Homebrew Etiquette for both homebrewers and their friends.

For Homebrewers

You will give homebrews to your friends.

They are your friends because you like them. People whom you like deserve to drink good beer. And since you make the best beer ever, you are obligated to share your creations.

Relatedly, you will provide pouring instructions with your homebrews.

Non-homebrewers don’t understand: there is yeast and other gunk on the bottom of that bottle. Ah, how often I have seen a relative drink a homebrew straight from the bottle, only to complain about it tasting more and more weird as they went along. You know how to pour a homebrew — they do not. Enlighten them.

You will try to get your best friends into homebrewing.

Tell your friends how easy it is (lie). Let them try a few of your best homebrews so they can see what’s possible. Maybe even offer to sit in on their first brew day to supervise from afar. Lay off if they just don’t seem interested, but if you see even a hint of desire in their eyes, draw it out so it can blossom. Love exists to be shared, and there is no greater love than that between a man and his homebrew. Share the love with those around you. They’ll stop drinking so many of your homebrews if they have their own.

You will talk about things other than homebrewing once in a while.

You think homebrewing is awesome. This is because homebrewing is awesome. Some people, however, are wrong about everything, and will get tired of hearing about homebrewing very quickly.  Find a new conversation topic before you lose all of your friends. Politics! You know, there’s a lot of politics right now! My god, just talk about something else.

You will not fight with your spouse or significant other while homebrewing.

Look, homebrewing can get complicated and messy. You will drop things, struggle with siphons, slop on the floor, encrust your stovetop with Bob-knows-what— let it go. Laugh at your stupidity. It’s either that or you end up tearing each other’s heads off, which is America’s leading cause of divorce. Plus, if you divorce, you have to split up the equipment.

Alternatively, it might just be a better idea to pick a homebrewing partner whom you’re not romantically involved with. OW! Or do. Forget I said that. Brewing with someone you love is the best. Ow, that really hurt…

For Homebrewers’ Friends

You will not ask your homebrewing friend for homebrews.

I know, we keep talking about the money we’re saving by homebrewing, but we really aren’t saving worth a sack of maggots. We’re constantly buying new equipment, software, ingredients, etc., because we want to make the best homebrews possible. Thanks to that, our homebrews end up being pretty expensive on a per-bottle basis. If we want you to have them, you’ll get them, but don’t ask for them. Would you go into someone’s home and ask to eat their food? Oh. Well, don’t.

You will learn how to pour homebrews.

On the bottom of each bottle of homebrew is a layer of yeast and crud. You don’t want to drink that. As Victory would spin it, it’s “not the most flavorful part of the beer.” Pour just vigorously enough to raise a good head without disturbing the sediment too much, leaving the bottom 1/4″. You’ll find that most of the sediment collects in the little corner where the bottle juts out from the neck, leaving you with clear, homebrewed joy in your glass.

Another note: Do not stop pouring once you’ve started. If you tilt the bottle back upright while pouring, you’ll mix the sediment in with what’s left in the bottle. Do your friends’ homebrews justice: Don’t make them taste ooky.

You will return your homebrewing friend’s bottles.

Agh! What are you doing?! We can use that bottle again! Here here, no, look, you just rinse it out, there. Now set it upside down to dry. See? And then we’ll use it next time. Hey, are you done with that Yeung? Can I have the bottle? Oh wait, those are twist-offs. Never mind.

You will not ask to watch your homebrewing friend brew.

We have enough sanitary concerns to worry about without a whole ‘nother organism in the room. If your homebrewing friend invites you over, then yeah, go ahead and watch, but don’t invite yourself. Besides, brewing is a mind-numblingly boring thing to watch. It’s very much like a Star Wars movie: Two hours of nothing happening, followed by fifteen minutes of complete chaos.

Homebrewing 1 Comment »

I’m sure some of you are waiting to hear about how our take on Steph and Tim’s Foreign Extra Stout has played out — I can tell you that Ray and I have tried a couple, and they have carbonated, but they need to mellow a bit.

But if you also remember that post at all, you should remember our mention that I was going to put my own spin on the recipe, and I did. Except it didn’t quite work.

Inspired by my Orange Chocolate Chip cookies, I wanted to add an orange flavor to the stout; however, foresight was in my favor and I decided I didn’t want to chance the entire 5 gallons. So Ray and I prepped 2 carboys when it came to secondary fermentation: one for 2.5 gallons of untouched stout (the control) and one for 2.5 gallons of stout with 1.5 ounces of McCormick orange extract added (the variable).

We thought the grocery-store extract would be fine, and we eagerly awaited the orangey-goodness seeping through the stout, infusing the roasty beer with a nice citrus nose and flavor. We didn’t get that lucky.

While the control batch carbonated fine — just needs a little more aging — the orange-flavored stout never carbonated. So it’s flat, and quite honestly, it reminds me of orange-scented cleaning supplies in the taste and nose department. A bit of a disappointment, BUT it’s not as if we wasted 5 gallons. So far we used a majority of a 12 ounce bottle to create a beer and brown sugar reduction that was paired with sauteed apple slices over french toast. It was pretty neat. We’ve also read plenty of blog posts about using “bad beer” for marinades and such, which we will most likely do over the coming months. I wanted to feed it to my plants, but Ray dissuaded me.

So, you might be asking, “What happened?” We’re not 100% sure; I know I properly added the priming sugar to the bottling bucket — and the regular stout fermented fine — so I think it’s safe to rule that out. The only thing we can think of is that your typical baking extract does not rock yeast’s world. That, or maybe I didn’t do my good luck dance well enough that day.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days 3 Comments »

I wrote this month’s recipe myself. It’s only our fourth brew day, and our experience in homebrewing is negligible compared to some people we know. Am I crazy to be creating a recipe from scratch already? I must be crazy. Crazy crazy.

Our big leap into recipe writing is made all the ballsier by our choice of style. This month, we’re making a Belgian Tripel. Possibly my single favorite style — hence my burning desire to make one — Tripel is a sweet, golden, light bodied, yet ferociously alcoholic beer. Hop bitterness is typically subdued but noteworthy, ceding the floor to sweet, pale malts and spices. Belgian candi sugar lightens the body while creating complex alcohol aromas, and Trappist-style yeast produces warm, banana-like esters that burst forth from a dense, creamy white head.

High alcohol content (ours will be around 8.5% or 9% ABV, but I’ve seen as high as 12%) is disguised by the ample sweetness. When it’s aged properly, it’s not uncommon to mistake this for a lighter session beer before falling out of your chair after half of a pint… which is one of the reasons why it is typically only served in a 10 oz tulip glass.

For a beer as big as this, it is very important that one create a yeast starter two or three days in advance. Creating a yeast starter gives your yeast extra time to wake up and reproduce in a light wort before getting dumped into the heavy wort that this recipe produces. The end result is a faster fermentation that starts sooner. We’ll go into detail on how this is done soon. In the mean time, however, my brother-in-law has an excellent yeast starter tutorial in his Picasa gallery here. He doesn’t do it quite the same way that I do starters (I don’t use an airlock, for example), but you won’t ever go wrong following Tim’s advice. The guy knows brewing better than anyone I’ve ever met.

Note that you could certainly try to do this without a yeast starter, but even with the starter, ours took two days to get up to full speed. Without the starter, we could have gone a week without seeing anything happen. By that time, one could only guess what other kind of microbes will have taken up shelter in all of that sweet, delicious wort.

But enough worrying. Here’s how we did it:

30 August, 2008
Belgian Tripel
5 gallons

3 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract (60 min)
6 lbs Pilsner Light Liquid Malt Extract (15 min)

8 oz CaraVienne Malt (Steeping)
8 oz CaraFoam Malt (Steeping)

1 lb Belgian Candi Sugar (60 min)

1 oz Vanguard Hops [4.4% AA] (60 min)
1 oz Sterling Hops [6.0% AA] (15 min)
1 oz Sterling Hops [6.0% AA] (1 min)

1 oz Crushed Whole Coriander Seed (15 min)
2 oz Sweet Orange Peel (15 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs Trappist Yeast WLP500

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

———

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

The boil will be for 60 minutes. Remove grains, turn off heat, and add dry malt extract while stirring. Add candi sugar and stir until dissolved. DO NOT add liquid malt extract yet!

Bring to a boil. Add Vanguard hops.

With 20 minutes remaining, add Whirlfloc tablet.

With 15 minutes remaining, turn off heat. Remove Vanguard hops and add liquid malt extract while stirring.

Return to a boil. Return Vanguard hops to the boil. Add 1 oz Sterling hops, along with crushed coriander seed and orange peel.

With 1 minute remaining, add 1 oz Sterling hops.

Chill wort to ~80°F. Pitch yeast. Allow to ferment to completion at ~70°F.

Rack to secondary fermenter. Age for at least two weeks before bottling.

Definitely a more complex recipe than we’ve brewed so far, and I confess that I did at times fail to relax, insisted on worrying, and did not have a homebrew. Make a checklist. Plan out every detail ahead of time and just follow your list. You’ll have a much less stressful brew day if you do.

This took twice as long as we expected to begin fermenting, but it did start eventually. Just be prepared for a couple days of worrying, followed by a moment of elation when your fiancée spots the first suggestion of krausen on the surface of your wort. Phew…

Also, keep in mind that this is going to be a fairly long and slow fermentation. I won’t be especially surprised if primary fermentation takes more than two weeks to complete. Let it do its thing. Good beer takes time.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days 1 Comment »

The mysophobiacs in the audience are going to love this. It might even prove to be their favorite part of brewing.

Microorganisms are everywhere. They’re in the air, on your skin, and in your mouth, and they never come off. You’re always filthy. They just. Won’t. Come. Off. Aaaaggghhhhhh…

The good news is that these little bastards can be killed with just a little effort and due diligence. Today, we’ll look at the fascinating world of

Sanitation

Unfermented wort is loaded with delicious sugar and nutrients, making it an ideal place for beer yeast to live. Unfortunately, beer yeast is not the only thing that thrives in wort. Unless you eventually try to create a lambic, removing as many wild microbes from your equipment as possible is going to become an important part of your beermaking ritual. You want to give your yeast a chance to become the dominant life form in your fermenter before any other organisms can take hold. The task is not trivial, but it also isn’t in the least bit difficult.

But first, let me allay one fear you may have: There is nothing that can survive in beer that can kill you or make you sick. A contaminated beer might taste bad (or disgusting), but it will not hurt you. Once it has completed primary fermentation, the alcohol acts like a natural disinfectant against nasty microbes. The worst thing that can happen is that you will have to either drink or discard some yucky beer. Even then, spoiled homebrew still tastes pretty good.

Sanitizing your equipment is easy. I’ll take you through the routine that I follow every brew day.

1. Sanitize the primary fermenter — Measure out a little more than 1 ounce of Star San, pour it into the 6.5 gallon fermenter, and then fill the fermenter with plain tap water until the foam spills over. Let it sit for a couple minutes, or until you’re about to start brewing. You can leave the solution in the fermenter as long as you want, but if you plan to leave it there overnight, keep adding water until the fermenter is completely filled.
2. Empty and dry the primary fermenter — I usually do this step just as we start brewing. Empty the sanitizing solution into your bottling bucket (it’s going to be super heavy, so get your wife to do it), and place the fermenter upside-down on the drying rack for at least half an hour or so. The foam won’t all drain out, but the negligible amounts of Star San that remain will have zero impact on your beer.
3. Sanitize instruments — Toss the following into the bucket of sanitizer: Plastic spoon, funnel, sample taker, stopper (the one with the hole in it), and airlock (3 pieces). No need for neatness; just drop them in. Make sure the inside of the sample taker fills up with solution.
4. Sanitize your hands – You can wait until you’re ready to transfer your wort to the fermenter to do this. Dip your hands into the bucket of solution. I like to go up to my elbows, but at least go a little bit past your wrists. Let your hands and arms air dry — towels are loaded with bacteria and fungus. You’ll probably drip solution all over the house, but don’t worry about it; it won’t stain or bleach anything.

That’s all you need to do on Brew Day! Later down the line, when you’re transfering beer between fermenters and buckets, you’ll also need to sanitize your racking cane, hoses, and bottling wand. I’ll remind you when the time comes.

Here’s a tip: Leave the sanitizing solution in the bottling bucket. Maybe put your kettle lid on top of it to keep dust out. You’ll still be able to use that solution in a week or two when you need it again.

Cleanliness

Cleanliness is just as important as sanitation. Where sanitation is concerned with killing microorganisms, cleanliness is about simply keeping your equipment clean, as in free of dirt and mold.

Over the next few months, you’re going to see dirt, dust, and leftover gunk collect in your fermenters and hoses. These deposits are perfect spots for microbes to grow, because your sanitizing solution might not be able to penetrate them. Some dirt will probably dissolve on its own in the sanitizer solution, but keeping your equipment clean with good, old fashioned elbow grease is just as important as passively soaking everything in Star San.

A little diligence is all you need. Rinse hoses immediately after using them. Scrub the brew kettle right after brewing. Use the carboy washer and brush to thoroughly clean your fermenters after you transfer beer out of them.

If you’re like us, your discipline will probably decrease to a not-so-fanatical level after one or two brews, and that’s fine. Even the most rigorous sanitation routine will only work 99.9% of the time, so it really isn’t worth worrying too much about. When the inevitable (and unlikely!) day comes and you find yourself the proud owner of 5 gallons of something funky, forgive yourself. Even the best and biggest brewers end up with a bad batch from time to time.

Next Time

Brew Day!

Homebrewing, Technical Add Comment »

Last time, we looked at all of the equipment we’ll need for our first homebrew, plus a bunch of stuff that we don’t need need, but that is Major League Nice-to-Have Town. Now, we need something to put in it.

Today, we’ll look at

Ingredients

Beer is made from four key ingredients: water, sugar (fermentable sugar, I should say), hops, and yeast. And actually, hops aren’t technically required, but you’ll hardly ever see a beer without them. Three plus a yeah-but-not-technically, we’ll say.

Water — A tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical required to sustain all terrestrial life. It is the most common molecule on Earth, and can be found covering approximately 70% of its surface. It is a liquid at room temperature, and the Celsius temperature scale is based around its freezing and boiling points, which are defined as 0 ºC and 100 ºC, respectively. The refractive index of water for the yellow sodium D line at 20 ºC is 1.333. It is commonly available from taps installed in most buildings.

Water will make up more than 90% of your beer, and so I highly suggest that you purchase a water filter attachment for your kitchen sink. Purchase bottled water for your beer only if your tap water tastes genuinely bad — your particular tap water will impart its own unique character to your beer. As long as your water tastes good, you should use it in your beer. An entire science exists around the replication of specific brewing waters. It’s that important.

Fermentable sugar — Your primary source of fermentable sugars will be malted barley. Barley is a grain that is very similar to wheat in appearance. Malted barley is created by steeping barley in water until it begins to sprout. The germinated barley is then dried. This germination produces some sugars, along with starches that are converted to sugar in a process called mashing. These sugars will be converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide during the fermentation process.

These surgars can also be derived from wheat, rye, and other grains. Some breweries, particularly the big American ones, also use rice and/or corn. If I may be permitted a brief editorial, please please please don’t emulate these breweries.

Hops — Green, conelike flowers that grow on long, green vines (or bines, technically). These add bitterness and floral flavor and aroma to your beer. Some hops also impart citrusy, earthy, or spicy flavors. There are dozens upon dozens of different hop varieties, but you’ll probably quickly find a few that are your favorites. Americans are particularly fond of the “C” hops, (i.e. Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, etc.)

Yeast — Microorganisms that eat sugar and excrete alcohol, carbon dioxide, and various other byproducts depending on the strain. Different yeast strains will produce beer with different flavors, but the end result, barring contamination, is the conversion of sugar to alcohol.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Homebrewers do not make beer. Yeast makes beer. The stuff that homebrewers make is a non-alcoholic tea called wort (pronounced wert). Yeast then converts the sugars in the wort to alcohol and carbon dioxide, turning the wort into beer. They don’t get paid for this, and many of them die in the process or are discarded afterward. They have a terrible union.

Your First Recipe

I’ll make this easy for you. For our first homebrewed beer, we’ll use Morebeer.com’s Extra Special Bitter kit. This kit contains all of the ingredients you’ll need, minus yeast, which can be found here. This is the same kit that Mel and I used in our first homebrew. It’s an easy recipe to start with, and the results will probably knock your sock off. New socks can be found here.

Let’s go over what’s included in the kit.

Malt

The kit comes with 7 lbs of Ultralight Malt Extract. Malt extract exists to make your life easier. No malting, no mashing — that work has been done for you. After mashing, most of the water is removed from the resulting liquid, producing a concentrated syrup that happens to be one of the most delicious substances known to man. Almost all of your fermentable sugars in almost all of your recipes will come from malt extract (unless you eventually decide to try mashing yourself — we haven’t braved that yet, and probably won’t until we have a house to do it in).

In addition to the extract, the kit also includes 8 oz of Crystal Malt 40L, 8 oz of Honey Malt, and 4 oz of Special Roast. These are what we typically call specialty grains, malts that we will steep in our wort, allowing them to add their unique characteristics to the beer. In this particular case, Crystal Malt adds color; Honey Malt adds a sweet, nutty flavor; and Special Roast adds a biscuity flavor and a deep, orange color.

In general, the more malts that are used in a beer, the heavier and more alcoholic the beer is. This recipe uses a moderate amount of malts. A light lager would probably use half as much malt, while a big barleywine might use as much as 11 - 12 lbs of malt extract along with another pound or two of specialty grains. There is a lot of room for experimentation, and no two beers are the same!

Hops

The kit contains 1 oz of Magnum hop pellets, and two 2 oz packages of Kent Goldings hop pellets. We’ll get into more detail about how we’re using these hops when we get to brewing. As for what hop pellets are, they are hops, simple as that. Okay, they look like rabbit food after having been squeezed down into pellets, but ounce for ounce, they’re exactly the same thing, only they stay fresher longer and are more convenient to store.

Magnum hops are primarily used for bittering, because they are very, very good at it. You can get a lot of bitterness out of a little bit of Magnum, and the bitterness they impart is so smooth that even people who are typically sensitive to hop bitterness can enjoy the flavors it provides. You may find yourself using this one frequently.

Kent Goldings hops have a mellow, flowery aroma and flavor that perfectly compliments malty beers. Many English beers use them to great effect.

Yeast

The yeast we are using is called English Ale yeast, produced by White Labs. These little guys impart a rich, malty taste to the beers that they make. During fermentation, they also produce organic compounds called esters, which add a slightly fruity flavor and aroma to the beer.

Based on the combination of malts, hops, and yeast that we are using, we should expect a semi-sweet, nutty, mellow, flowery, slightly fruity beer. That’s a lot of different flavors from just a few ingredients! Already, you should be seeing the power of homebrewing.

Other stuff

By now, you’ve noticed two more ingredient bags in your ESB kit: a little, white tablet labeled Whirlfloc, and a 4 oz bag of white corn sugar.

The Whirlfloc tablet is what’s called a clarifier. During the boil, you’re going to see lots of little globs of stuff floating around the pot. Whirlfloc (also called Irish moss in some circles) helps to precipitate these globs out of suspension, giving you a clearer beer in the end.

The corn sugar will find use in a couple of weeks, when you are ready to bottle the beer. By this time, almost all of the fermentable sugar in the beer will have been eaten by the yeast. But we need to carbonate the beer, and the only easy way to do that is to have the yeast produce carbon dioxide!

To remedy this, we will add just a little bit more sugar before the beer is bottled, in a process called priming. The yeast remaining in suspension in the beer at the time of bottling will then turn the sugar into carbon dioxide, which the caps on the bottles will hold in, forcing it to dissolve into the beer, creating carbonation. But, more on that later.

Next Time

In our next article, we’ll learn about the most exciting part of brewing: sanitation! I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun it is!

After that, we’ll get to brewing. Don’t worry.

Homebrewing, Technical Add Comment »

Looking in from the outside, homebrewing seems complicated. There are all kinds of weird equipment you have to buy; you have no idea what the recipes mean; people keep harping about sanitation; and the list of steps goes on for pages.

I know how you feel, and while brewing isn’t the simplest hobby you could pick up, it isn’t nearly as involved as you would expect. If you’re interested in starting but feel intimidated, the best thing you can do is find a friend who brews and sit in on one of his or her brew days. Mel and I watched Steph and Tim brew a pumpkin ale around this time last year, and we were genuinely surprised at how little work was involved, even for a recipe as relatively complex as a pumpkin ale. By the time we left their house, we felt like we were ready.

But, what if you don’t have any homebrewer friends? That is where I come in — Hi! I’m your new homebrewer friend! Today, we begin our beginning homebrew tutorial series, Pitched For The Very First Time. We are friends now. Please be my friend.

Today’s installment:

Equipment

Ready? This part’s easy. Here’s what you need: sanitizer, bottle filler, bottle caps, bottle capper, bottles, steeping bag, hop bags, big spoon, funnel, carboy, carboy brush, bottling bucket, airlock, rubber stoppers, flux capacitor, aaaggghhhhh…

Let me start over.

When you’ve committed to your decision to start homebrewing, go to Morebeer.com and buy this starter kit.

Ah. That was much easier.

The kit that I just directed you to contains almost all of the equipment that you’ll need. I’ll show you what else you should buy, but to get started, here is what the kit contains:

• Bottle of Star San Sanitizer — A colorless, odorless, tasteless, viscous liquid that creates a 2.5 pH solution when mixed with water, acidic enough to kill microorganisms, but neutral enough to comfortably sanitize your hands (unless you have extremely sensitive skin). You’ll use this to sanitize anything and everything that will come in contact with your beer after you finish boiling.
• Steeping bags — Thin mesh bags. You’ll use these to steep grains and to boil hops and/or hop pellets.
• A big plastic spoon — Used to stir the boiling wort (unfermented beer). Also very useful for aerating the wort before you pitch the yeast.
• 6.5 gallon glass carboy — This is where the magic [science] happens. The carboy will be your primary fermentation vessel. The basic kit comes with a plastic bucket instead, but I strongly suggest you get the glass carboy. I’ll explain why I’m having you get the deluxe kit in a moment.
• Airlock — A plastic device designed to let air produced by fermentation out of the fermenter without letting air and microoragnisms in.
• Rubber stoppers — For the carboy. One with a hole, and one without. The airlock attaches to the stopper with the hole in it.
• Carboy brush — A bent brush on a long, metal handle. Makes cleaning the carboy a lot easier for people without 1-inch wide arms.
• Funnel — For pouring the wort from the kettle into the carboy.
• Hydrometer and hydrometer cylinder — A device that measures the specific gravity of your wort. Don’t worry about what that means just yet. Suffice it to say that you’ll use this to estimate how much alcohol is in the beer when it finishes fermenting.
• Bottling bucket — A plastic bucket with a spigot. When it’s time to bottle your beer, you’ll siphon it into this bucket, hook up the bottling wand (see below), open the spigot, and fill your bottles. This bucket is also a great place to keep your sanitizer solution when you’re not bottling. Simply pour an ounce of Star San into the bucket, and then fill it to the top with tap water.
• Tubing — Used to transfer beer between vessels.
• Racking cane — A bent, metal tube that you’ll use to siphon beer between vessels. The kit also contains a siphon starter, but you use it by blowing air into the carboy, which I feel runs the risk of contamination. We don’t use ours, but I won’t stop you from using it yourself. It’s probably perfectly safe.
• Bottling wand — A tube with an attachment at the end that allows liquid through when you press on the end. You’ll use this to fill your bottles with uncarbonated beer.
• Bottle brush — For cleaning out the bottles
• Bottle caps — They keep the beer from all falling out of the bottles when you throw them around your living room.
• Bottle capper — A tool that locks your bottle caps down onto your bottles, creating a tight seal.
• Homebrew book — I haven’t looked at this yet, but I’m sure it’s very informative. Charlie’s book is better.

Why am I having you get the deluxe kit instead of the basic one? For the glass carboy. The plastic bucket that you get in the basic kit will do the job, but plastic can scratch, and scratches make outstanding bacteria homes (it’s hard to get sanitizer into them). Plus, the carboy just feels more elegant. I even feel better saying the word carboy than when I say bucket. If you stick to brewing, you’ll probably upgrade to a carboy anyway, so why not get one now?

Apart from bottles (you can just clean and save the bottles you get at the liquor store) and a kettle (if you don’t already have a big enough pot, which you probably don’t), if you want to stop with that kit, you can, but here are a few more handy items that you may want to pick up to make brewing easier and to improve your final beer:

• 5 gallon Kettle — A nice, big kettle is a must. You may already have a large pot, but depending on how old it is, it may have some funny flavors on its surface, ready to mix in with your wort. It’s probably also not very big, and you’re going to want to be able to boil about 3 gallons of water. Just get a dedicated brew kettle and save yourself a lot of strife. Benefit: You’ll almost definitely need one anyway.
• Wort chiller — A coil of copper tubing attached to two long plastic tubes. You hook one tube up to your kitchen faucet, lower the copper coil into your boiling wort for the last few minutes of the boil (to sanitize it), and point the other tube down the sink drain. When the boil is complete, you’ll turn the cold water faucet on and stir the copper coil around the hot wort. This will chill the wort much more quickly than if you simply let it sit, which will allow you to pitch the yeast sooner, minimizing the amount of time that the cool wort is exposed to air and microbes. Benefit: Faster; Less risk of contamination.
• More mesh bags — As your recipes start getting more complicated, you’re going to need more bags for steeping and hopping. We own three. I wouldn’t mind one more. Benefit: Easier boils.
• Sample taker — Basically a big pipette. You’ll need this to take samples for hydrometer readings. I have no idea why the starter kit doesn’t include one. Benefit: Easier sample taking. I know, right?
  
• Bottle/Carboy washer — Hooks up to your sink to turn it into a raging fountain. Cleaning a carboy will be unbelievably difficult without one. Benefit: Easier cleaning.
• 5 gallon glass carboy — A smaller carboy to use as a secondary fermenter. When your beer is done fermenting (yeast settles to the bottom of the fermenter, no more bubbles come out of the airlock), you’ll siphon it into this carboy, leaving the sediment on the bottom of the primary fermenter (called trub) behind. After another week in the secondary fermenter, you’ll find that more sediment has settled out of the beer. The end result will be a clearer beer with fewer off flavors. In addition, you can leave the beer here for several weeks if you do not have time to bottle it for a while. Benefit: Clearer, better tasting beer; Convenience.
• Carboy drainer — Used to leave your carboys upside down to drain. Easier than holding it like that yourself for an hour. Benefit: Convenience.
• More Star San — May as well stock up. Benefit: It’ll be years before you need to buy more.

Overall, you should expect to spend about $200 - $300 on equipment, plus another $40 - $50 for ingredients for your first batch. Don’t let that scare you off. Theoretically, you should save money in the long run because you won’t be buying as much commercial beer. In practice, Mel and I still make weekly trips to the liquor store, but hey. The initial investment is the worst of it, though; I only set aside $10 from my paycheck every week to fund our homebrewing, and that has been more than enough.

Next Time

That was a long one. Next time will be a bit shorter. We’ll go over ingredients: what to buy, and where to buy them.

PS: If you want to go ahead and order your equipment and ingredients now in one shot (which you may as well), I’ll be talking about the Extra Special Bitter kit that we used in our first brew, so I suggest ordering that. You’ll also need a vial of White Labs English Ale Yeast. When your kit arrives, freeze the hop pellets and refrigerate the yeast.

Homebrewing, Technical 1 Comment »

We started drinking Nuts About Coffee in full force this past weekend. It came out great! Here are our notes:

1.064 OG; 1.020 FG; 5.9% ABV; 13 IBU

Appearance: Super dark brown, hazy, and barely translucent, with a tall, thick, rich, frothy, and almost stout-like latte-colored head.

Nose: Sweet and nutty. Coffee is mellow and smooth, but still the first thing that you notice. Slight hint of chocolate.

Taste: Big hazelnut coffee taste asserts itself from word one, lingering on the back of the tongue and begging you to take another sip. More sweet, general nuttiness and chocolatiness wait beneath the coffee.

Mouthfeel: Medium, slightly dry, and creamy. Very smooth. Surprisingly crisp and clean.

Overall:
My thoughts: Best yet! The coffee was a great idea. I’m glad we used it. I was worried at first that it might have been too much, but it turns out we used just enough to make it the centerpiece without overwhelming with it. I can’t imagine how we could improve on this.
Mel’s thoughts: Did we just brew a porter? Hot damn, this was a great experiment. This would make an excellent dessert beer!

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Tasting Add Comment »

We are thieves. Dirty, filthy, rotten thieves are we. To call us unseemly would be an insult to all of the unseemly folk you’re likely to see around town. Same goes for the dishonest, unscrupulous, unwashed, crooked, amoral— Would that I could list these delicious adjectives all night, but we’re on a schedule here, people. Everyone on the bus… the bus to Lyingbastardville.

For you see, we brewed with a stolen recipe on Saturday. Steph and Tim were kind enough to offer us the recipe for their Foreign Extra Stout, and we accepted it… right from under their noses.

Steph asked us to refrain from listing the detailed recipe here, but I can at least give you their description of the beer:

Just as its appearance suggests, this beer is malty, roasty, and chocolatey. However, this style of stout is actually intended to be enjoyed in tropical climates. Smooth and refreshing, with a substantial alcohol kick, our Foreign Extra Stout will make you feel like you’re on the beach in Cancun…
OG: 1.074, 7.2% ABV, 30 IBU

This was one of the five beers that Steph and Tim brewed for their wedding back in April, and Mel and I have been wanting to try putting our own spin on the recipe for a while. We’ll fill you in on just what that spin is in a couple weeks, as long as it doesn’t fail in an epic manner, but, for now, you may rest assured that it will be awesome.

And now I’ve spent 246 words telling you that I have nothing to tell you. In place of the usual recipe listing, here is the first chapter of Moby Dick:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses…

Yeah, all right, I can’t keep that up.

I can’t believe Ray did that … anyway, you guys are going to love this beer once I put my little twist on it. Though I can note that I goofed and did not order the correct amount of hops. We had a half ounce too little from what the original recipe called for, but since the average alpha acid was for this particular hop from this particular supplier was higher by roughly 0.7 percent, we were okay. C’est la vie!

Well damn, now I gotta write a post about why what she just said makes so much sense…

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days 1 Comment »